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Topic: GemX - missing in action (Read 193503 times)

Who knows? Granted, GemX was pretty small & low-key, but they've been around for a while. You couldn't run even the smallest business for this long with so little customer response. Even if GemX could get away with being unresponsive, they clearly had much higher standards than that. If you just read the GemX web site, you'll see a lot of effort & a lot of good intentions.

GemX presented their work, from one upgrade to the next, including all of their correspondence with me, very professionally. I found Peter not only to be kind, but also and very patient, unassuming, honest and upfront about his work. He was very appreciative of the input. He was very professional.

Of course, I know this is not common knowledge, but anyone who communicated with GemX at the start of (or prior to) the GemX forum would agree that this situation is very strange, and very disheartening. Prior to GemX opening their forum, you just couldn't find their customers complaining on forums of poor service.

So, all I'm saying is, where is the benefit of the doubt? They had a good reputation before. Perhaps they will, again.

I certainly don't think customers are obliged to concern themselves with the welfare of companies they patronize. But for anyone here who feels insulted, or assumes GemX is too arrogant to respond appropriately, have you considered that perhaps, you might be wrong? What would make you or me shut down like that?

The once-responsive, ambitious, hard working developer is not communicating. This is not a good sign. Sure, it would be nice if someone would make contact, but that's not happening, either. Another not very good sign. Perhaps I'm wrong. But arrogance, I don't think, is the issue.

I replied to them telling them they lost me as a customer and referral source after their last fiasco. I ensured it was received as I sent it directly to Peter Brooks. This company lost my trust with their 2.5 month outage and non-communication phase.

I got a "Christmas" mail from them(must have downloaded some trial at some stage but dont have any of their stuff)

In the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have just started a limited time BIG special offer - 50% discount on all GemX applications. Please visit http://www.gemx.com for further details.

I got a "Christmas" mail from them(must have downloaded some trial at some stage but dont have any of their stuff)

In the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have just started a limited time BIG special offer - 50% discount on all GemX applications. Please visit http://www.gemx.com for further details.

I got that too, unbelievable. The nerve. I guess sending a promotion like that out and not being able to respond to support issues or maintain a product forum tells all one needs to know about this company.

No, that's actually just to give hope to potential buyers and cash in on a little Xmas $$flow$$. This company has already made their play, by responding to nothing. Their website can "say" whatever it wants, everyone knows they have been MIA, how convienent (for them) to show up in time for a lovely little Christmas promotion.

Removal of the user forums was one of the first things WinOrganizer did before it came to a crawling halt in development. Leaving a message eerily similar to the one on GemX's announcements page. As has been discussed here before, all it takes to maintain user forums is some keen individuals with a sort of responsibility about them, and a vested interest in the product. Not hard to find among any popular software's community. You don't just remove all your forums and not respond to peoples inquiries. Unless the whole company was a one man shop and he/she passed away or their computer was stolen for like about 5 months - or maybe they just installed Vista, that would explain everything.

hi,while not pointing fingers at anyone -this comes from my own experience.

from a developer's standpoint:The first problems is that to make a good organizer, you need a good scheduling control, a good word-processor control and good database tool.

the first problems is trying to figure out which scheduling library is good enough to be used, and which ones to use. most of the schedulers in the market are [-- !! --] quality. there are only two good vendors in the Delphi market and two in the MFC/C++ market. if you buy something that's bad, you end up with angry customers or very limited scheduler features.

the second problem is a good word-processor library - most of the third-party word-processor libraries in the market are same as above that I mentioned.

the third problem is getting a good database library. ... (same as above).

now, imagine if you are the developer, you buy a [-- !! --] scheduler, [-- !! --] word-processor, [-- !! --] database, and try to develop an organizer... you invest hundreds of hours to develop a working product, you eventually fail.

i wonder why no finger pointing went out to the software library vendors. they appear to be blameless...

i looked at the GemX issue, and many of the issues found in their not due to their fault. I purchased the same libraries that GemX uses, and I never used them, due to "quality" issues

for example, the costs would be like investing approx US$15,000 to sell a product worth US$29.95 ..., how many US$29.95 products do you have to sell to recover your costs and make a profit? not an easy answer.

You could argue that even if the components are the source of the problem it is the package developers fault for choosing such crappy components!

If they were all they could afford at the time of initial development then the profits from sales should ideally be invested in better components for the next version and redevelop a better product based on them.

Users don't (IMHO) need to be told why bugs occur or who is to blame - they simply want them fixed.

Example - a company buys laptop batteries from a third party and sells their new all singing laptop worldwide. The batteries turn out to have faults and the laptops burst into flames 6 months after purchase. (Sound familiar) The end user might be sympathetic to the laptop manufacturer but they still want a new laptop with a non-exploding battery. Will an end user be happy if the laptop manufacturer tells them 'not my problem - I don't make the battery and I can't fix it?'

The battery sourcing problems are not the end user's concern - they want and need a laptop that works it is up to the laptop manufacturer to source dependable batteries and if he has problems take the battery manufacturer to court for compensation or find another source of dependable batteries.

Just joined the forum - found it when I did a search on "texnotes draw bugs".

I bought TexNotes Pro a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately without having tested it thoroughly. After discovering some bugs in the Draw section I wrote their support and reported the problems. I also included screen capture videos to demonstrate exactly how the program behaved. The first they said was this:

"First of all please keep in mind that draw and paint tools are not the main part or purpose of TexNotes Pro [TNP] They are added as an extra tools to provide quick access to simple draw and paint needs. It's not our intention to add full vector drawing or image painting modules. We offer 60 days trial so that everybody, who wishes can test all the features they need, way they need them before buying it. It's a fact of life that nothing will work according to everybodies specific needs or way they want it to be working."

Well I certainly agree here, but I find this remark quite irrelevant. I didn't ask for any new features or anything, just reported some apparent bugs with the existing features.

Anyway, they were actually able to reproduce some of the bugs I reported (which they promised would be fixed), but not them all. One they claimed they could not reproduce is when I draw a rectangle, an ellipse, a line or whatever, I only see a small part of the object. First when I click a different button the screen is refreshed and I can see the whole object. Another is that I simply cannot select or rotate any objects - no selection handles appear at all when I click them. I can move the objects by dragging, but also here I cannot see what's going on real time because the screen is not refreshed before I click a button.

Since they were unable to reproduce these bugs, I started investigating the problem which appeared to be related to my machine or setup or something. I have another machine with the exact same mainboard, CPU etc., but with different software installed. I installed TexNotes here - same problem. So I couldn't point at any specific software that might be conflicting with TexNotes.

I then reverted back to a "raw" image of my system, i.e. XP with only the mainboard drivers installed. Same problems. I removed all the drivers, same problems. Huh? Bug in chipset or onboard graphics (which I'm currently using)? But why did other vector programs like Xara Xtreme and PowerSHAPE, or any other graphics program for that matter, work flawlessly then? I scrathed my head.

Then I hooked up an older Win 2000 computer with completely different hardware and installed Texnotes here. Exact same problems. Then I began to realise that the GemX guys maybe didn't really tell the truth when they said they could not reproduce some of the bugs. So I'd like to hear if anyone else here are having the same problems as me, with TexNotes Pro?

Who knows? Granted, GemX was pretty small & low-key, but they've been around for a while. You couldn't run even the smallest business for this long with so little customer response. Even if GemX could get away with being unresponsive, they clearly had much higher standards than that. If you just read the GemX web site, you'll see a lot of effort & a lot of good intentions.

I agree here, their standards seem to be pretty high, you can also see that in the way they design their software. But if you can't live up to your own standards, it doesn't work. One of the reasons it doesn't work may be they sell themselves too cheap. Or wanting to deliver too much for the money, to keep up with the competition (even though I don't know of anyone who could actually compete, if their stuff really worked well, without all these bugs).

I'm just trying out their SurfGem program, and it simply beats anything I've seen of that kind. I've never really liked the other's I've tried but this one is just what I've been looking for. And I wouldn't hesitate one second in buying it, if I knew for sure it wasn't full of bugs, like Texnotes and Do-Organizer apparently is. And not least, if it has bugs, that they will be fixed. Does anyone have any experience with it? Haven't really had time to check it out that much.

LATEST NEWS:19th December 2007: Software Development.GemX do-Organizer original release date of Nov 2007 has been pushed into early January 2008, due to new features in the Finance section and further improvements in other applicable sections.

We will be releasing updates for TexNotes Pro, SurfGem and Wizquote in the first quarter of 2008.

Does anyone else get the feeling certain users (yes, plural) may be suddenly posting on behalf of GemX here (albeit rather softly)? Hmmmm, new, with less than 10 posts and all positive about GemX (...or am I just delusional)

I know Sally from Vizacc and she is not related to GemX. She's working on the very fine HelpMaker software. As to the other new poster, his posts were rather negative about GemX. True that another new member was (very) positive

vegas - I can see your point, but really, I don't think that zenzai's posts are really that glowing. He/she is saying pretty much what everyone here says - the products would be world beaters if they worked but that with all the bugs and with no confidence that the products will be supported he/she is loathe to part with his/her money.

SKesselman's comments cannot be construed, in my opinion, as being glowing reviews but rather an attempt to insert a moderate voice into a heated discussion. People in this thread are largely of the "GemX should not be forgiven" frame of mind. I think all Skesselman is trying to say is that, yes, they have screwed up royally, but perhaps there's a story behind it and also to express the hope that GemX will recover and that nothing terrible has happened to the man behind it, who appears to be Peter Brooks.

Anyway, agree or disagree with SKesselman's perspective, I don't think that anyone from GemX is posting here posing as a concerned user.

Does anyone else get the feeling certain users (yes, plural) may be suddenly posting on behalf of GemX here (albeit rather softly)? Hmmmm, new, with less than 10 posts and all positive about GemX (...or am I just delusional)

What a lot of nonsense! People have been speculating too much. If Gemx meet their new datelines, they'll also get a vote of confidence from me. A new version of Texnotes would be amazing news. I'm also looking forward to their new version of Do.

It's the new year and maybe it's time for some second chances and for giving people the benefit of the doubt.I think it's clear that people have had problems with GemX, and they have expressed their unhappiness.But maybe it's time to cut them some slack and see how they do in the coming year.